NY Times – Self-Driving Taxis Are Catching On. Are You Ready?
With the arrival of Amazon’s Zoox robot taxi in San Francisco to compete with Waymo, autonomous services are gaining momentum. But there are pros and cons.
Editors note: the writers forgot the key negative of robotaxis – they are just more cars!
See original article by Brian X. Chen and Cade Metz at the NY Times
When self-driving cars started picking up commercial passengers in San Francisco two years ago, they were not eagerly welcomed. Protesters took to the streets demanding that the vehicles be removed, citing concerns about safety and the loss of people’s jobs.
Then an autonomous car operated by Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, ran over and dragged a pedestrian, not long after another Cruise vehicle collided with a fire truck. The company’s vehicles were eventually taken off the road. The future of self-driving cars in the home of the tech industry’s artificial intelligence boom looked like it was on the rocks.
But Google’s Waymo, a self-driving-car company with a more cautious approach, stuck around, and today the situation has flipped. San Francisco has, to the surprise of many and the continuing aggravation of a few, become “Waymo-pilled.”
Now Waymo is getting another significant competitor in San Francisco. Amazon announced that it was beginning a free test program in the city on Tuesday for Zoox, its boxy, carriage-shaped robot taxis. The company has also been testing its robot taxis in Las Vegas since September and plans to expand to Miami and Austin, Texas. But San Francisco is the first city where the companies will compete head to head.
Amazon’s San Francisco rollout marks the beginning of a long competition with Waymo, said Bryant Walker Smith, a professor in the University of South Carolina’s law and engineering schools who specializes in emerging transportation technologies.
“San Francisco is the place where companies are determined to be dominant,” he said. “I see this playing out very vigorously.”
The day-to-day experiences of people here — both good and bad — offer a preview of what other cities can expect in the coming years. But first, a look at the new competitor:
Meet Amazon’s Zoox
We (Brian X. Chen, a consumer technology writer, and Cade Metz, a reporter who writes about A.I.) took a test ride of a Zoox car this month.
Our ride began on a sunny afternoon in San Francisco’s Mission District, where Zoox’s founder, Jesse Levinson, used the Zoox app to summon a car to the Tartine Manufactory, a famous bakery.
After a few minutes, an arriving Zoox vehicle parked on a street around the corner rather than in front of the bakery. That move was by design: The robot taxis are programmed to pick people up only from zones deemed safe, Mr. Levinson said, meaning that riders may occasionally have to do a bit of walking to their car. (More on this later.)
When we entered the car, it felt like sitting in a roomy luxury vehicle, built from the ground up with the idea that a human driver wouldn’t be needed. There were four seats, two on each side facing each other, meaning some riders may have to ride backward. Each passenger had access to a wireless charger for a phone and a touch screen to pick music, set the cabin temperature, call for help or open the car doors. Notably, unlike a Waymo, the Zoox has no steering wheel.
Our 15-minute Zoox ride felt pleasant; the car accelerated gradually to the city’s speed limits. In one instance, the car braked suddenly to swerve when a driver coming from the opposite direction entered our lane to pass a bus. At stoplights, the car braked smoothly. When we reached our destination, we pressed a button on the touch screen to open the doors to exit.
These are still early days for Zoox in San Francisco, and initially only people who have been on the company’s wait list will be able to summon a car. For now, they will be able to travel within a small area that includes San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood and the Mission and Design Districts. The company plans to gradually expand service to cover the city next year.
What Are the Upsides of Self-Driving Taxis?
Each Zoox passenger has access to a wireless charger for a phone and a touch screen to pick music, set the cabin temperature, call for help or open the doors. Cameras on the cars help guide the vehicles.
The emergence of Zoox — along with an expansion of Waymo — means more consumers will soon get to try one of these cars. Waymo, which operates 2,500 vehicles, said this month that it had expanded service from San Francisco south to San Jose, about 40 miles away, and had begun letting riders take its robot taxis on freeways in the Bay Area, Phoenix and Los Angeles.
So why could that be a good thing?
- Self-driving cars could reduce the risk of major accidents. Whether they are distracted by their phones, inebriated, reckless or unskilled, lots of people are bad drivers. In the first half of 2025, roughly 17,000 people in the United States died in motor vehicle crashes, according to the Department of Transportation.Whenever people choose to ride in an autonomous car, that is one trip fewer handled by a human driver — a premise that has, so far, worked well for Waymo. A spokeswoman for Waymo, which declined to comment on this column, referred to the company’s safety data. Compared with Waymo, the data showed, average human drivers traveling the same distances had five times as many crashes with injuries, 11 times as many with serious injuries and 13 times as many with injuries to pedestrians.Data on Waymo-involved car accidents published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration showed that incidents involving Waymos had increased over the last few years as the company expanded its fleet and operations, but that the vast majority of incidents resulted in no or minor injuries.
- For consumers, the more options, the better. For many years, Uber and Lyft have dominated the industry. During peak commute times, summoning a car from a traditional rides-hailing service can become challenging, and fares, which climb with demand, can get pricey. Waymo and Zoox give consumers more options.
- Some riders would feel safer riding with a robot than with a stranger. Uber and Lyft have made headlines over reports of sexual assaults by drivers. A New York Times investigation found that Uber had received a report of sexual assault or misconduct in the United States almost every eight minutes on average between 2017 and 2022. In Kansas, a Lyft driver was charged last year with the rape of a teenager.Uber and Lyft spokespeople referred to data showing that more than 99.9 percent of the services’ trips ended without any safety reports. Uber added that the company had introduced a feature that gave female passengers the option to summon female drivers.Even if encountering an abuser in a Lyft or an Uber may be statistically unlikely, self-driving cars give riders the option to eliminate that possibility.
What Are the Downsides?
Even though driverless taxis are designed to make fewer mistakes than humans, they are far from perfect. There are downsides to which San Francisco residents can attest:
- Self-driving cars are less flexible. For many drivers who enjoy slightly exceeding the speed limit, it’s not fun to be stuck behind a Waymo. The robot cars are conservative about obeying speed limits and braking to avoid collisions. When more of these cars hit public roads, they will almost certainly add to drivers’ frustrations.And because self-driving cars err on the side of caution, they sometimes won’t pick you up where you want them to. Although Uber or Lyft drivers are often willing to illegally double-park in front of your home to pick you up, a Waymo or Zoox will occasionally park in an area deemed safe even if it’s farther away, which may not be ideal if you’re carrying luggage.
- They still cost more to ride. Despite their lack of drivers, autonomous cars typically charge more for rides than Lyft and Uber.An analysis by Obi, an app that lets riders compare pricing across taxi, black car and ride-hailing services, found that Waymo rides cost 41 percent more than Lyft and 31 percent more than Uber on average at the same time on the same route.The higher fares may be related to a number of factors. Each car costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce, for example, and supply is limited, with relatively few autonomous vehicles in service.Zoox said that after its free trial period ended, it planned to offer pricing that was competitive with Uber and Lyft.
- They still make mistakes. It’s too early to conclude that self-driving cars are, broadly speaking, safer for the public. Cruise shut down after the collision tanked its reputation and led to regulatory scrutiny.And although Waymo has fared well with the public overall, the company occasionally generates outrage, including a recent incident when a Waymo car killed a beloved neighborhood cat.
To that end, Zoox has lots to prove. The company, which was founded in 2014, must continue to take a conservative approach to safety, warned Matthew Wansley, a professor at the Cardozo School of Law in New York who specializes in emerging automotive technologies and was previously general counsel at an autonomous-vehicle start-up.
“Simulations alone cannot tell you what on-road performance will look like,” he said.
Zoox’s Mr. Levinson said the company’s strategy was to expand its operations slowly and carefully. “Our belief has always been that society will not accept robotaxis making a similar number of mistakes as humans,” he said.
See original article by Brian X. Chen and Cade Metz at the NY Times
